Coming down off the high of King Kong last year, Universal Pictures is turning in a weak blockbuster summer. They're counting on star power, cars, and cocaine cowboys to fill their wallets. While other studios get all the attention, they'll have to make due with a somewhat smaller, less exciting release schedule.
Miami Vice is probably the closest thing they've got to a big summer flick, but even that has so far been met with vague indifference. Can Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx recapture the quirky charm of the TV show without resorting to parody? We'll find out this summer.
To find out exactly what Universal Pictures has in store for you in Cinema Blend's Summer 2006 Universal Preview below. Click on each movie title for more information and images.
The Break-Up
Release Date: June 2
Synopsis: Pushed to the breaking-up point after their latest "why can't you do this one little thing for me?" argument, art dealer Brooke (Aniston) calls it quits with her boyfriend, Gary (Vaughn), who hosts bus tours of Chicago. What follows is a series of remedies, war tactics, overtures and underminings suggested by the former couple's friends, confidantes and the occasional total stranger. When neither ex is willing to move out of the condo they used to share, the only solution is to continue living as hostile roommates until somebody caves.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Release Date: June 16
Synopsis: Sean Boswell (Black) is an outsider who attempts to define himself as a hot-headed, underdog street racer. Although racing provides a temporary escape from an unhappy home and the superficial world around him, it has also made Sean unpopular with the local authorities. To avoid jail time, Sean is sent to live with his gruff, estranged father, a career military-man stationed in Tokyo. Now officially a gaijin (outsider), Sean feels even more shut out in a land of foreign customs and codes of honor. But it doesn't take long for him to find some action when a fellow American buddy, Twinkie (Bow Wow), introduces him to the underground world of drift racing. Sean's simple drag racing gets replaced by a rubber-burning, automotive art form--with an exhilarating balance of speeding and gliding through a heart-stopping course of hairpin turns and switchbacks.
You, Me, and Dupree
Release Date: July 14
Synopsis: Carl and Molly Peterson (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson) are just starting their new life together--complete with a cute house, boring neighbors, stable jobs and the routines of newlywed existence. There's just one unfortunate hitch in their perfectly constructed new world... And his name's Dupree. Randy Dupree (Owen Wilson), Carl's oldest friend and perpetual bachelor, has found himself with nowhere to go after being fired. Carl yanks his jobless/homeless pal out of the bar he's living in and invites him to temporarily crash on the couch--that's just what friends do.
Miami Vice
Release Date: July 28
Synopsis: Here's the official synopsis with some of the fat trimmed: The cocaine cowboys of the ’80s are gone, but Miami’s Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann’s culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice. The cocaine cowboys of the ’80s are gone, but Miami’s Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann’s culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice.
Accepted
Release Date: August 11
Synopsis: High school senior Bartleby "B" Gaines (Justin Long) is on his way to scoring eight out of eight rejection letters from colleges--which isn't going to go over big with Mom and Dad. At least he's not alone in the exclusion. Several of his crew of outcast friends are in the same, college-less boat. So...how does a guy facing a bleak career please his parents and get noticed by dream girl Monica (Blake Lively)? Simple. Open his own university. B and his band of misfit freshmen take "liberal" arts literally when they fool their parents and peers and create the esteemed South Harmon Institute of Technology. They clean up an abandoned psychiatric facility, employ a buddy's brilliant?but subversive--uncle (Lewis Black) as the dean and create a fake web site as their campus calling card. Bam! South Harmon, the alternative school of higher learning, is born.
Idlewild
Release Date: August 25
Synopsis: Set against the backdrop of a 1930s southern speakeasy, Idlewild explores the lives of Percival (Benjamin), the club's shy piano player, and Rooster (Patton), the club's showy lead performer and manager. Idlewild synthesizes drama, music, cinema and style to bring the tale of struggling singers to life. It is the feature film-directing debut for Bryan Barber, the award-winning director and longtime OutKast music video collaborator, and includes dance sequences choreographed by legendary performer and three-time Tony winner Hinton Battle.
